Daniel Fountain is a man of many names. At home, he is called dad by his son Lincoln. During class, he is referred to as Mr. Fountain. And for the 23 boys that he helps train day in and day out for the Shaker soccer team he has the responsibility of being called coach.

All of this sounds like a lot and you’d be right, it is. He has to juggle all three of these responsibilities at once but he does it phenomenally, his mind is always moving, creating more ideas to be a better motivational figure and inspiration to those around him. 

Having three very time consuming responsibilities in your life obviously has its positives and negatives and it is very clear that is still the case with Mr. Fountain. When I interviewed him and asked him about the biggest struggles with having all of these responsibilities, he explained how he has to find that perfect balance between teaching, coaching, and, of course, his family. He wants to try his best to make every party happy including himself and there are times where because of the teams’ successes Mr Fountain has to spend time away from his family and that very well could cause conflicts. There was one situation where his team was traveling during October and he had to miss Halloween with his son, but Mr. Fountain didn’t want his son to miss the experience, so he took him to a trick or treating event at the local mall to show his son that he would always try his best for him and show him that he cares. Personally I’ve babysat his son Lincoln at work, and he could go on and on about how happy he is that his Dad is doing a good job with the team. 

Speaking of the team, I can guarantee that even if they don’t say it directly to Mr Fountain, they are extremely grateful and appreciative of what he does for them. His knowledge and experience is very valuable to the team. 

He didn’t just simply learn the sport of soccer overnight. He had to go through the experience that all of the other 23 kids on the team have to go through with him. Mr Fountain had many coaches and all of them taught him something. From the good coaches, he tried to take what was good about them and implement that into his own teachings so that he is more favored by the team. From the bad ones, he still took into account what they did but instead he would study what they did wrong and make sure that he would never put his team through those experiences.

Time is the most important thing in life and Mr. Fountain finds happiness in using his time to make people in his life happy. They may be two different concepts ,with different obstacles, but there is one word in common with how he sees his wife, son, and the 23 people on the soccer team and that is the word family.